Sam Winter (1955 - ) academic

Sam Winter did a BSC in Psychology at the University of Southampton in 1973, a post-graduate certificate in Education at Coventry College of Education, 1974, and an M.Ed at the University of Exeter in 1977.

After working as a teacher and psychologist, he moved to the University of Hong Kong in 1985. He was a lecturer in psychology and then a specialist in cognitive behavioural analysis. He completed his PhD there in 1995.

Shortly after the turn of the century, he became aware of the health needs of trans persons.

“When working in Hong Kong I met a young person who had recently self-identified as a trans girl. She had been thrown out of the family home by her parents, and could not find a job because of her male ID card. She started to use drugs and developed mental health problems. I knew then that I had to change my life to do something to help. I saw the potential of being able to make a big difference in a new and specialised area.”

He changed his speciality to transgender health, and taught gender and sexuality. He was on the editorial board for the International Journal of Transgenderism, and on the board on WPATH from 2009. He was a co-author of the WPATH Standards of Care 7. He was the only established academic in Asia specializing in transgender issues, and was a founder of the TransgenderAsia site. As it says on the site’s home page:

“Some years ago Sam Winter examined the humanities and social sciences literature on transpeople. Of 235 key publications on transgenderism in the period 1992 to 2002 around 41% were European and 48% were North American, a total of 89% from two parts of the world that account for only 20% of its population. Only seven per cent were from Asia”.

Of particular interest, Winter distributed questionnaires to 195 Thai trans woman and to 147 Filipino trans women. The results were published in 2006-7. In both countries more trans women have college or technical education than the general population, but they are mainly unable to get graduate jobs. They work as show girls, in the hospitality trade, etc or are unemployed. In both countries many trans women expect that by age 50 they will have reverted to living as male, even if they are post-op. Most had started hormones as teenagers, and had surgeries in their twenties. The vast majority, 98% in Thailand, and 95% in the Philippines were androphilic.

As Winter came up to age 60, it was made clear that his tenure would expire, even though other professors at the same university continued beyond that age. Over 230 students wrote to the Vice Chancellor urging that Dr Winter be retained, and a Change.Org petition to the same effect gained over 800 supporters. However the University insisted that he go, and in 2015 he became Associate Professor in Sexology at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia.

He leads a small team in sexology, and teaches at undergraduate and masters levels. He has been involved with the World Health Organization working towards the ICD-11 which moves the diagnosis of “gender incongruence” out of the mental health and behavioural disorder section and into sexual health. With Kavan Wylie he was the co-leader of the series of articles in The Lancet in 2017. He has done advocacy work with Asia-Pacific Transgender Network (APTN) and Global Action for Trans* Equality (GATE).

• Jennifer Yang. “Influential medical journal devotes series to transgender health issues: The Lancet has devoted series to transgender health that highlights health inequities that exists in LGBT community”. The Star, June 17, 2016. www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/17/transgender-health-issues-topic-of-medical-journal-report.html.
• Richard Lane. “Sam Winters and Kevan Wylie: pioneers in transgender health”. The Lancet, 388, July 23, 2016. Online.

Winter has published many articles and book chapters. Most of them are behind pay walls – see Scholar Google for the list.

Here are some of his articles that are accessible:

• Sam Winter & Nuttawut Udomsak. “Male, Female and Transgender : Stereotypes and Self in Thailand”. The International Journal of Transgenderism, 6,1, Jan-March 2002. Online.
• Sam Winter & Nuttawut Udomsak. “Gender Stereotype and Self among Transgenders: Underlying Elements”. The International Journal of Transgenderism, 6,2, 2002. Online.
• Sam Winter. “Thai transgenders in focus: demographics, transitions and identities”. International Journal of Transgenderism, 9, 1, 2006: 15-27. Online.
• Sam Winter, Sass Rogando & Mark King. “Transgendered Women of the Philippines”. International Journal of Transgenderism, 10, 2, 2007: 79-90. Online.
• Sam Winter. “Lost in transition: transpeople, transprejudice and pathology in Asia”. International Journal of Human Rights, 13, 2-3, 2009: 365-390. Online.
• Sam Winter & Kyle Knight. “Remember Today That Transgender Kids Are Kids First”. Huffington Post, 11/20/2015. www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-winter/remember-today-that-trans_b_8601410.html. 
• Sam Winter. Of Transgender and Sin in Asia. Online.
• Walter Pierre Bouman, Amets Suess Schwend, Joz Motmans, Adam Smiley, Joshua D. Safer, Madeline B. Deutsch, Noah J. Adams & Sam Winter. “ Language and trans health”. International Journal of Transgenderism. 2016. Online.
• Sam Winter. “Gender trouble: The World Health Organization, the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD)-11 and the trans kids”. Sexual Health, 14,5, January 2017: 423-430. Online.
• Penelope Strauss, Angus Cook, Sam Winter, Vanessa Watson, Dani Wright Toussaint & Ashleigh Lin. Trans Pathways: the mental health experiences and care pathways of trans young people. Summary of results. Telethon Kids Institute, 2017. Online.

LinkedIn     Curtin University    TheConversation    ScholarGoogle      Change.Org

Dana J Bevan (194?- ) bio-psychologist. Part I: life.

Part I: Life
Part II: Theory
Part III:  7 factors that are not causes

Thomas Bevan’s father was a wildlife manager, and his mother a school teacher. Thomas was an only child, and was soon trying on his mother’s clothing. He tried to tell his parents that he was not really a boy, but quickly learned that his gender identity was something that should be kept a deep secret, and concentrated on science and on sports. Partly because they did not live in town, Bevan did not make male friends, and his female friends withdrew as puberty developed. Loneliness led to depression.

The football coach got Bevan an award in the senior year. He picked Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, for its football team and its Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Bevan graduated AB in psychology in 1969, and spent the next four years at Princeton University.

Thomas, like so many others, married a woman thinking that it would ‘cure’ the urge to cross-dress. However the graduate student housing provided the privacy to do so when his wife was at work.

Bevan was able to talk freely with “a somewhat mysterious lecturer” (p73).  This was Julian Jaynes, who was working on the ideas that he would publish as The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, 1978. Bevan later described Jaynes as a mentor.

Bevan gained a PhD in physiological psychology at Princton 1973 with a thesis on Experimental Dissociation of Hypothalamic Finickiness and Motivatonal Deficits from Hyperphagia and from Hyperemotionality.

After graduation Bevan served as a Captain in the Army Medical Service Corps, and was involved in developing antidotes to chemical weapons and agents. After leaving the army, Bevan became a civilian contractor. One of the projects that he worked on was aircraft sensors.

The Bevans had two daughters.

Bevan's job involved near continuous travel, and the associated hotel stays provided opportunities for cross-dressing. Sometimes there would be a local transvestite group that provided dressing facilities at its meetings. Bevan accumulated enough female clothing – between purges -- that a second bag was being checked on air flights.

Bevan found Jan Morris’ Conundrum, and later some books by Vern Bullough in libraries, but being in the closet hid the book in the stacks rather than check it out. By the 1990s Bevan had rented a post-office box, and bought books and Tapestry magazine from IFGE.

“I particularly studied Virginia Prince How to Be a Woman though Male, information I use to this day”.

With the end of Cold War I, Bevan felt that he could come out a little. However most transvestite groups met on weekends only, and he was not prepared to tell Mrs Bevan. So he went instead to a BSDM group that met on a weeknight. Using the listings in Tapestry Bevan did find cross-dressing groups in different cities to attend.

The Bevans separated.

Bevan also started taking testosterone by patches, hoping that it would ‘cure’ the cross-dressing.

Thomas found another wife using the new invention tele-conferencing. This wife knew from the beginning that Thomas was a cross-dresser. Bevan found a job in Atlanta where she lived, and moved in with her:

“she panicked when she saw all the ‘junk’ that I had, which consisted mostly of professional technical files, electronic junk and all my carpentry and metal working tools”.

From 2000-2005, Bevan was an Associate Lab Director at Georgia Tech Research Institute, and did work for Department of Defense customers.

Using the name 'Dana', Bevan found a therapist who was experienced in Transgender issues, although Bevan continued to pretend that it was marriage counseling.

From 2005-2011, Bevan was a Research VP at KFORCE Government Services in Atlanta, working on artificial intelligence algorithms for Homeland Security.

In 2007 Dana gave a paper at the IFGE conference held in Philadelphia. Dana started transition in 2011. She gave presentations at the Southern Comfort Conference in 2011 and 2012, and to WPATH in 2012.

In 2013, as Dana Bevan, she published The Transsexual Scientist: The Causation and Experience of Transgenderism and Transsexualism, a mixture of autobiography and the science of TSTG as she named her condition. The next year, reverting to her male name, Thomas Bevan, she published a 280 page exposition, The Psychobiology of Transsexualism and Transgenderism: A New View Based on Scientific Evidence.

She gave a workshop at the 2015 Fantasia Fair.

In the title of The Transsexual Scientist, Bevan refers to herself as ‘transsexual’, tells of taking hormones, electrolysis but says nothing of surgery. In the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, 2017, Dana says:

“I still present as male at family gatherings, primarily because of in-laws and friends of my children. The trend seems to be that younger people are more accepting, so we’ll see what happens with my grandchildren’s generation.”

Dana ends her autobiography, The Transsexual Scientist with

“Knowing what I know today, I should have chosen transsexuality earlier in my life and fought for being my authentic self, no matter what the cost. The delay has cost me time, friends and productivity. I had several good opportunities to choose correctly but I passed them up, choosing to fight another day.” (p. 155)

Dana’s theoretical position will be discussed in Part II.

• Thomas E. Bevan, Experimental Dissociation of Hypothalamic Finickiness and Motivatonal Deficits from Hyperphagia and from Hyperemotionality. PHD, Princeton,1973.
• Thomas E Bevan. “Physiological correlates of information processing load-ongoing research and potential applications of physiological psychology”. The Role of Behavioral Science in Physical Security Proceedings of the Second Annual Symposium, March 23-24, 1977. US DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE: National Bureau of Standards.
• Thomas E Bevan. “Biosensor for Assessment of Defender Performance Capability”. The Role of Behavioral Science in Physical Security Proceedings of the Third Annual Symposium, May 2-4, 1978. US DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE: National Bureau of Standards.
• Dana J Bevan. The Transsexual Scientist: The Causation and Experience of Transgenderism and Transsexualism. Bevan Industries Inc, 2013.
• “An Interview with Dana Bevan ’69”. Dartmouth Gay, Lesbian,, Bisexual & Transgender Alumni/ae Association, May 2, 2013. https://dgala.org/2013/06/28/an-interview-with-dana-bevan-69/
• Thomas E. Bevan. The Psychobiology of Transsexualism and Transgenderism: A New View Based on Scientific Evidence. Praeger, 2014.
• Dana Bevan. “Transgender Science Recap”. Sisterhouse, Mar 2, 2015. www.sisterhouse.net/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/12/Transgender-Science-Recap.pdf.
• William Ray. “The Science of Gender”. The Wireless, 6^th August 2015. http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-science-of-gender
• Thomas E. Bevan, Being Transgender: What You Should Know. Praeger, 2016.
• Dana Bevan. Thea Peach State Conference. Thea, 2/22/2016. www.thea-plus.com/blog/thea-peach-state-conference-by-dana-bevan
• Allison Tate. “5 Transgender Myths...Busted: In the wake of Trump repealing transgender protections, scientist Dana Bevan is here to bust your misconceptions”. Advocate, February 24 2017. See below.
• Lisa Furlong. “Dana (Thomas) Bevan ’69: A transgender bio-psychologist on embracing her true self”. Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, May-June 2017. https://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/dana-thomas-bevan-69

TGForum   WebPage   Bloomberg   LinkedIn
___________________________

TGForum says that “Thomas E Bevan” is a pen name; Dartmouth Alumni Magazine says that it is her professional name. It is the name on her PhD.

In Bevan’s 2013 and 2014 books she uses the term TSTG as a collective noun, for individual trans persons, for the phenomenon and as an adjective. E,g: “Many TSTG suffer from depression”; “TSTG behave as they do”; “Although TSTG is no longer regarded as a disorder”. Fortunately the usage has not caught on. She does not use the acronym in Being Transgender, 2016, but does still use it on her LinkedIn page and elsewhere.

“For the purposes of research I treat transgenderism and transsexuality (TSTG) as one phenomenon. Many transgendered people become transsexuals. Most important, there is no scientific evidence to distinguish between the two, other than the frequency of TG presentation.” (2013 interview with Dartmouth GLBT Alumni)   This statement will of course alienate many transsexuals.   While the DNA and epigenetic triggers may be indistinguishable between transvestites and transsexuals, they do not constitute the totality of causality, and a scientific approach that does not examine the wider picture is not the best of science.   See more in part II.

The text of The Transsexual Scientist disguises the names of the universities that Thomas attended, but then openly names them on and only on the back cover. Likewise the text hides the name of the mentor at Princeton, but gives his name in a dedication at the front of the book.

On p30 of The Transsexual Scientist Bevan says “I gradually put aside my love of music and art lest these be seen as ‘feminine’”. This was in the mid 1960s when the Beatles and the Stones were changing music. The feminist criticism of ‘60s music is that it was far too masculine.

Bevan is yet another writer who repeats the misinformation that ‘transvestism’ was coined by Magnus Hirschfeld (p38). However she does not like the term: “Today, transvestite is regarded as a pejorative word and is used primarily in degradation of transsexuals and transgender people” (Psychobiology: 42).  This may be so in the Tri-Ess culture, but despite Prince's efforts, Tri-Ess never did own the word.

Is Bevan a Princian?   In addition to her statement: “I particularly studied Virginia Prince How to Be a Woman though Male, information I use to this day”, let us look at the appendices to The Psychobiology of Transsexualism and Transgenderism.    The only autobiographies listed are her own, Jan Morris,  Jennifer Boylan's She's Not There, and for some strange reason, the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.  The only self-help books are two by Prince, Crossdressing with dignity by Peggy Rudd and Identity Management by Dallas Denny.  The only support groups are Beaumont Society, Seahorse Society, Renaissance, Tiffany Club,  Transgender Educational Association, Tri-Ess and Susan's Place.    So she certainly looks like a Princian.

Jayne Thomas ( 194? – 2002) psychologist

Jay Thomas grew up in a small town in Indiana, and as a teenager was a national swimming champion.

Despite feeling wrong as a boy, Jay married a woman at age 17, however she had great difficulties with her husband’s transsexual inclinations. Thomas moved to the Los Angeles area and worked as a consultant for movie and television productions and as an engineer psychologist for Hughes Industries, an aircraft development company.

A second wife was more supportive of the trans aspects, and they traveled together as two women. Thomas had children with both wives.

When the second wife passed on in 1985, Thomas felt free to transition. Thomas had been working as a consultant at a large Los Angeles banking firm, and was able to continue there as a woman.

Afterwards she gave counseling to other transsexuals, in accordance with the HBIGDA Standards of Care. In 1988 she took a part-time position in the Psychology Department at the Santa Monica College, where she was a well-regarded teacher who shared her background with the students. She also worked part-time at the Los Angeles Mission College.

With Kate Bornstein, Jayne appeared on the Geraldo television program “Who’s Sorry Now” about post-surgical regret. Kate and Jayne were there in contrast as successful and happy transsexuals.

Jayne was a speaker at the first New Women’s Conference in Essex, Massachusetts in 1991: her talk was reprinted in The Journal of Gender Studies.

“I've made the comment on more than one occasion that I'm a hell of a lot more comfortable with the masculine part of myself now, in female form, than I ever was when I was in male form. I couldn't be androgynous as a male. I can now. Because being male doesn't threaten me now”.

Jayne also gave lectures and presentations at other colleges. From this came the VHS tape Gender Identity: Variations of Expression. At one college presentation, after Thomas spoke of her gender history, an Iranian woman said:

"I knew there was something different about you. I knew it! Women don't walk around the way you do. Women aren't as assertive, as bold as you. Women your age wouldn't generally stand here like this and make a presentation."

Jayne’s son, an aspiring thespian had become involved in dance as a form of creative expression. Jayne met his teacher and also took the course, and found it useful in expressing a new gender. She and the teacher wrote this up and it was included in the Gender Blending anthology edited by the Bulloughs and James Elias.

During the spring semester, 2002 Jayne suffered a stroke and went into a coma. Despite medical care, she died a few months afterwards

• Jayne Thomas. “Putting Gender Issues in Perspective: The Whole You”. Journal of Gender Studies, 14,1,Winter-Spring 1992: 3-19. Online.
• Kate Bornstein. Gender outlaw: on men, women, and the rest of us. Vintage Book, 1995: 81.
• Jayne Thomas & Toby Green. Gender Identity: Variations of Expression. VHS Tape, 1995.
• Loren M. Wingert, CPA. “Coming Out: Transitioning Successfully On the Job”. Transgender Tapestry, 78, Winter 1996: D3. Online.
• Jayne Thomas & Annette Cardona. “The Use of Dance/Movement in the Adjustment to a New Gender Role” in Bonnie Bullough, Vern L. Bullough & James Elias. Gender Blending. Prometheus Books, 1997: 405-412.
• Daniel Harju. “Teacher Fights For Her Life: SMC instructor shared perspectives on human sexuality and personal life experiences”. Corsair, 84, 11, 13 November 2002. Online.
• Jeffrey S Nevid & Spencer A Rathus. Psychology and the Challenges of Life, Binder Ready Version: Adjustment and Growth. 13^th Edition. Wiley, 2016:404-5, 407.

Melanie Yarborough

Leah Cahan (Schaefer) (1920 – 2013) singer, psychologist

Leah Cahan was born in Milwaukee, and raised in Chicago. She was the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi who had escaped the pogroms in Lithuania.

Intending to be a music teacher, she started singing at age 15 at Central College (now Roosevelt University). After college she was in The Barries, a female trio. They lasted five years, sang on NBC radio in New York, were among the first artists to record for what became Capitol Records, and had a hit record with the Johnny Mercer, “San Fernando Valley”.

She lived in California and learned folk songs. Back in New York she was part of The Wayfarers, and became the first wife of jazz legend Hal Schaefer who was then in the group, and became known as Lee Schaefer.

After her second divorce Leah tried analysis, but after her father died, she slipped into a period of depression while living on unemployment pay.

A second session of analysis in 1953 led to her accepting the suggestion that she herself become an analyst. She was accepted at Columbia Teachers College, and then Columbia University, where she earned an MA and then a doctorate.

A third marriage at this time resulted in a daughter.

For her doctoral thesis she chose the topic of female orgasm. It was then 1961, and the ongoing work by Masters and Johnson had not yet been published. She was given permission by Ernest G. Osborne(1903-63), the head of her department who supervised her thesis until his early death. Leah was also advised by Margaret Mead. She quickly realized that understanding orgasm required understanding a whole life. She interviewed 30 white, middle-class women who were unaffected by the then just-beginning women’s movement. They talked about their first reactions to menstruation, their adolescent sexual encounters, their first sexual act, and how they feel about orgasm and adult sexuality. One finding was how each woman in the study had a negative reaction in childhood to the idea that her parents had sex. Many of the women had never talked to anyone in such detail before.

Leah 1974

The thesis was completed in 1964, and Columbia suggested that a commercial publisher would be appropriate, but it took until 1973 until one was willing.

After graduation, Leah was credentialed as a psychotherapist. After she had built a practice using the name Leah Schaefer, and had established a reputation in the field, she was contacted by Wardell Pomeroy, a co-author of the Kinsey Reports. Pomeroy had been working with Harry Benjamin as a therapist to assess ‘true’ transsexualism. Schaefer was chosen because of her ability to be non-judgmental. Pomeroy was preparing to move to San Francisco, and wanted her to take over his work with transsexuals, which she did. She continued to work with transsexuals for the rest of her life, progressing from evaluation to general therapy.
 
She was the first women president of Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS), 1978-1979. She worked with Connie Christine Wheeler. They interviewed Harry Benjamin in 1979 about the history of the SSSS, he took to them and trusted them with his files. They read all the 1500 or so files, and started meeting regularly with him to discuss what they found.

In 1983 they presented a paper “The Non-Surgical True Transsexual: A Theoretical Rationale”, an elaboration of Harry Benjamin’s Type IV, the person who cross-lives but does not desire gender confirmation surgery. After Benjamin’s death in 1986, Wheeler and Schaefer became the custodians of Harry Benjamin’s professional archives.

Schaefer was president of HBIDGA 1991-5 (before it was renamed WPATH), and was involved in the writing of several editions of its Standards of Care. In 1995 Schaefer and Wheeler published their seminal work, “Harry Benjamin's first ten cases (1938-1953): a clinical historical note”.

Schaefer donated the Benjamin archives and her own archives to the Kinsey Institute in 2007.

Leah 2007

Nancy Gonzales, who met Schaefer in 2008, summarized her work with transsexuals:

“She takes issue with the terms ‘gender dysphoria’ or ‘gender identity disorder’ in referring to these individuals' circumstances.  She feels that it's pejorative and inaccurate to classify this condition as a pathology.  In her professional opinion, most of the presenting problems they have stem from the stigmatization they suffer.  She believes that transsexualism is a birth anomaly and maintains, as do a growing number of scientists, that transsexualism is a naturally-occurring variation in humans and is part of a person's inborn psyche.” 

Leah Scheafer died aged 92.

• The Barries & Johnny Mercer. “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah”. 1944
• Paul Weston & his Orchestra, The Barries & Johnny Mercer. “San Fernando Valley”. 1944. Lyrics
• The Wayfarers (Hal Schaefer; Elka Sylvern; Lee Schaefer; Paul Bain). Wandering with the Wayfarers, LP RCA Victor, 1957.
• Lee Schaefer & Jim Hall. A Girl and a Guitar. LP United Artists, 1958.
• Lee & Hal Schaefer. Finian’s Rainbow and Brigadoon Remembered. LP United Artists, 1959.
• Leah Cahan Schaefer. Sexual Experiences and Reactions of a Group of 30 Women As Told to a Female Psychotherapist. Ed D Thesis, Columbia University 1965. Revised as Women and Sex; Sexual Experiences and Reactions of a Group of Thirty Women As Told to a Female Psychotherapist. Pantheon Books, 1973.
• Leah C Schaefer . "Frigidity." Modern woman.  Charles C Thomas, 1969: 165-177.
• Edward M Brecher.  "Leah Cahan Schaefer".  The Sex Researchers.  a Signet Book, 1971: 184-202.  
• Lindsay Miller. “Woman in the News: Dr. Leah Schaefer: A Lot More Than Just Sex”. Washington Post, 7/28/1973. Online.
• Suzanne Lowry. “Come as you are”. The Guardian, July 5 1974. Online.
• Leah C. Schaefer & Connie C. Wheeler. “The Non-Surgical True Transsexual: A Theoretical Rationale”. Eighth International Symposium on Gender Dysphoria, Bordeau, September 16-19, 1983. Abstract Revised as "The nonsurgery true transsexual (Benjamin's category IV): A theoretical rationale." International Research in Sexology (Sexual Medicine) 1 (1984).
• Leah Schaefer. “TV Relationships”. The tv-ts Tapestry, 43, 1984: 30-3. Online.
• Connie Christine Wheeler & Leah Cahan Schaefer. "Historical overview of Harry Benjamin's first 1500 cases." Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, Tenth International Symposium on Gender Dysphoria, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1987.
• Connie Christine Wheeler & Leah Cahan Schaefer “Harry Benjamin's first ten cases (1938-1953): a clinical historical note”. Archives of Sexual Behavior 24:1 Feb 1995. Online at www.helen-hill.com/pdf/hbfirst10cases.pdf. Revised as the Afterword to Randi Ettner. Confessions of a Gender Defender: A Psychologist's Reflections on Life Among the Transgendered. Evanston, IL: Chicago Spectrum Press, 1996.
• Jamil Rehman, Simcha Lazer, Alexandru E. Benet, Leah C. Schaefer, and Arnold Melman. "The reported sex and surgery satisfactions of 28 postoperative male-to-female transsexual patients." Archives of sexual behavior 28, no. 1 (1999): 71-89.
• Stephen B Levine, George R. Brown, Eli Coleman, Peggy T. Cohen-Kettenis, J. Joris Hage, Judy Van Maasdam, Maxine Petersen, Friedemann Pfaefflin, and Leah C. Schaefer. "The standards of care for gender identity disorders." Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality 11, no. 2 (1999): 1-34.
• Anne Lawrence, Yvon Menard, Stan Monstrey, Jude Patton, Leah Schaefer, Alice Webb & Connie Christine Wheeler. "The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association′ s Standards Of Care For Gender Identity Disorders, Sixth Version." World Professional Association For Transgender Health, 2001.
• Leah Cahan Schaefer & Connie Christine Wheeler. "Guilt in cross gender identity conditions: Presentations and treatment." Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy 8, 1-2 (2004): 117-127.
• Ellen Michel. “A Season of Recognition for KI Donor Dr Leah Schaefer”. Kinsey Today, November 2007. www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/about/images/schaefer-newsletter.jpg.
• Nancy Gonzales. “When October Goes: My Day with Leah Schaefer”. NCFR, 2008, www.ncfr.org/members-stories/when-october-goes-my-day-leah-schaefer.
• Dana Beyer. “Remembering Dr. Leah Schaefer, the Sweet Singer-Turned-Psychiatrist Who Healed a Generation of Trans Women”. The Huffington Post, 01/30/2013. www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-beyer/leah-schaefer-trans-women_b_2569123.html.

Discogs
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I don’t know why there is no mention at all of Leah Schaefer in Joanne Meyerowitz’ How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States.

Leaf Schaefer started her career as a psychologist while married to her third husband, but using her first husband’s surname.

Schaefer and Wheeler discuss Benjamin’s Type IV as it is usually taken to be, that is as a cross-living, non-op person. However in Benjamin’s 1966 book, as I have discussed, a Type IV is defined as “’Dresses’ as often as possible with insufficient relief of his gender discomfort. May live as a man or a woman; sometimes alternating.” Benjamin’s typology actually erases full-time non-ops, as well as gay and female transvestites and gynephilic High Intensity Type VIs.

Randi Ettner, psychologist and author of Confessions of a Gender Defender, 1996, is Leah’s niece. The book has, as an Afterword, a rewrite of “Harry Benjamin's first ten cases”.

The backing singers here are The Barries
 

Anne Vitale (1938 - 2026) gender therapist

Vitale first qualified as an artist, doing a 1972 BA at the University of California at San Diego followed by a Master of Fine Arts.

After some years of therapy for gender identity issues, she did a psychology PhD at the Professional School for Humanistic Studies, also in San Diego, and transitioned at the same time. Her dissertation was on gender identity issues, and she joined HBIGDA (now WPATH) in 1979. She had surgery in January 1980, moved to San Rafael, California and completed her PhD in 1982. She then studied Existential Psychotherapy with James F. Bugental, 1983-91.

A licensed psychologist in California, Anne Vitale has been at the same clinic in San Rafeal since 1984. Initially she thought that trans persons were too few for her to specialize in gender identity issues, and that she might be unsuitable in that “Countertransferance issues can be very destructive to a vulnerable population”. However there were few other gender therapists, and a San Francisco clinic started making referrals. She made contact with other gender therapists in the San Francisco area and they formed the Bay Area Gender Associates.

Glassgold and Drescher regard Vitale as a follower of Victor Frankl who entwined meaning and authenticity. They write, with regard to Vitale's 1997 paper:

“General authenticity is the clinical focus of Anne Vitale, a trans-identified, American psychologist specializing in existential-humanist psychotherapy. Vitale provides therapeutic support for cross-dressing and gender-divergent clients in such a way as to skillfully combine therapist advocacy and self-empowerment of the client. Specifically, she employs a client-centred, open-minded approach to helping her trans and questioning clients to take responsibility for discovering and actuallizing their own particular form of life meaning and personal power. This supported quest for identity and validation typically involves a dovetailing of genderal integrity, community connection, and existential authenticity.”

Rather than use the DSM diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder, Vitale proposes instead that, where there is a pathology, it is better labelled Gender Deprivation Anxiety Disorder (GEDAD): that it is this deprivation, not a person’s gender identity, that she seeks to treat. She divides gender variant individuals into three categories:

“for discussion purposes only and with no regard to importance or severity of diagnosis”. (p19)

G1. “natal males who have a high degree of cross-sexed gender identity … we can hypothesize that the prenatal androgenization/ defeminization process – if there was any at all – was minimal, leaving the default identity largely intact. Furthermore the female expression of identity of these individuals appears very difficult or impossible for them to conceal.” (p19)

G2. “natal females who almost universally report a lifelong history of rejecting female dress conventions along with conventional girl’s toys and activities. … these individuals typically take full advantage of the social permissiveness allowed women in many Western societies to wear their hair short and dress in loose, gender-neutral clothing.” (p20)

G3. “individuals who look and act unambiguously as society expects them to but privately identity as the opposite gender. We can hypothesize that the pre-natal androgenization/ defeminization process was sufficient enough to establish a workable gender identity that approximated their biological sex but insufficient enough to provide comfort in that gender role. For these female-identified males and male-identified female [see note below] the result is a more complicated and insidious sex/gender discontinuity. From earliest childhood these individuals typically suffer increasingly painful and chronic gender dysphoria. They tend to live secretive lives, often making incrementally stronger attempts to convince themselves and others that they are the gender they were assigned at birth.”(p20)

G1 and G2 are clinically similar. They both “report relatively low levels of anxiety”. If they decide to transition physically, they “accomplish it with relatively little difficulty”.

However

“The cloistered, [G3] natal males, on the other hand, typically only start to realize the seriousness of their dilemma at this age. It is common to hear reports of these individuals increasing the intensity with which they try to rid themselves of the ever-increasing gender-related anxiety. Many individuals paradoxically adopt homophobic, transphobic, and overtly sexist attitudes in the hope that they will override their desires to be female.” (p28)

She regards being trans as a congenital condition and cites Zhou et al, 1995, and Kruijver et al, 2000. As in the quotes above, she assumes that these studies justify an assumption that the prenatal androgenization/ defeminization process is different in G1 and G3 persons.

She regards sex as purely chromosomal and actually says

“The idea that one can ‘change’ from one sex to the other [is] absurd”. (p52)

However with a few cautions she does use hormones as a diagnostic tool.

“It is well documented that cross-sex hormones have a mitigating effect on patients suffering from severe gender dysphoria. The effect is so marked, in fact, that the treatment is used to confirm or reject the GID diagnosis. Fortunately, psychological outcomes precede permanent physiological secondary sex characteristic changes, making it an ideal tool for diagnostic confirmation or contraindication.”(p72)

 All page references are to Vitale’s 2010 book..

• Anne Vitale. “History and resolution of sex/gender integration needs in four male-to-female transsexuals”. PhD thesis, Professional School for Humanistic Studies, 1982.
  
• Anne Vitale. “The Therapist Versus the Client: How the Conflict Started and Some Thoughts on How to Resolve It” in Gianna E. Israel & Donald E. Tarver. Transgender Care: Recommended Guidelines, Practical Information, and Personal Accounts. Temple University Press, 1997.
  
• Anne Vitale. “Sexism in the Male-to-Female Transsexual”. 1997. www.avitale.com/MTFSexism.htm.
  
• Anne Vitale. “The Gender Variant Phenomenon--A Developmental Review”. January 27, 2003. http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm.
  
• Rachel Ann Heath. The Praeger Handbook of Transsexuality: Changing Gender to Match Mindset. Westport, Conn: Praeger Publishers, 2006: 90.
  
• Judith M. Glassgold & Jack Drescher. Activism and LGBT Psychology. Binghamton, Haworth Medical Press, 2007: 78, 79, 83.
  
• Lin Fraser. “An Interview with Anne Vitale”. The Update: The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, 20,3, Fall 2010. PDF.
  
• Anne M. Vitale. Gendered Self: Further Commentary on the Transsexual Phenomenon. Flyfisher Press/Lulu, 2010.
  
• Kay Brown. “A Clinical View”. On the Science of Changing Sex, February 2014. https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/a-clinical-view.
  
• Jack Molay.  “Anne Vitale on Crossdreaming in Middle Age”. CrossDreamers, May 19, 2014. www.crossdreamers.com/2014/05/anne-vitale-on-crossdreaming-in-middle.html.
  
• Jack Molay. “On Anne Vitale's theory on testosterone-poisoning in MTF crossdreamers”. Crossdreamer Sidebars, April 2, 2015. http://crossdreamers.blogspot.ca/2015/04/on-anne-vitales-theory-on-testosterone.html.
  
• Kay Brown. “A Passing Privilege ...”. On the Science of Changing Sex, January 1, 2016. https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2016/01/01/a-passing-privilege.

www.avitale.com      The Gendered Self      CV
_________________________________


A note on the Professional School for Humanistic Studies. It has neither a webpage nor a Wikipedia page. Googling it brings up other PhD theses by other students, but apparently all in the early 1980s, which gives an indication of when it discontinued. Apparently the founder was Harold Greenwald, (1910-1999) obituary, the author of a best-selling 1958 book on female prostitution, a student of Theodor Reik and Albert Ellis, and the developer of Direct Decision Therapy. Vitale says nothing about any of this or whether Direct Decision Therapy has influenced her therapy.

I like the expression Gender Deprivation Anxiety Disorder (GEDAD).  Pity that it is not more widely used.

In Vitale’s 2003 paper, G3 persons are all ‘natal males”, but in her 2010 book, ftm persons are also included.

Obviously there is an approximation of Vitale’s G1/G2 to Blanchard’s HSTS, and of G3 to autogynephilia. The citation notes to her book include both Blanchard and Zucker, and the reading list on her website includes the Clarke Institute’s 1990 book, Clinical Management of Gender Identity Disorder in Children and Adults. However there is no mention of Blanchard in the text, and thus neither acceptance nor rejection of the inevitable notion that her 3 categories are a rewrite of Blanchard’s. An obvious improvement over Blanchard is that Vitale does not align her 3 categories with sexual orientation, nor does she write her G3 as a sexual obsession.

Vitale starts by saying that her three types are “for discussion purposes only and with no regard to importance or severity of diagnosis”, but then claims a differential hormonal underpinning for each type. Some would say that this is equivocation or even reification.

Zhou at al. “A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality” 1995, is a much-criticized small sample(N=6) that claims to find a female-sized BSTc in the brains of dead trans women. Anne Lawrence argues that it is a marker of autogynephilia; Rose White that it is marker of HBS. However the paper argues only for a difference between trans and cis, and does not attempt to differentiate between different types of transsexuals, G1 vs G3, HSTS vs AGP etc. Thus Vitale’s use of it to claim hormonal differences between G1 and G3 is unsupported.

While Heath discusses Vitale’s typology in her 2006 book, there is no entry in the index for it.

I would like to refer to my previous article A rejoinder to Kay Brown’s “What is a Transsexual?”   There I commented:

a) "It is always easier to believe in a theory that matches your own life experience."   Kay Brown feels that she is classic Blanchard HSTS and endorses his typology.   I feel that neither of Blanchard's types match me and I reject it.   Maxine Petersen, as a loyal disciple of Blanchard, must regard herself as an autogynephile, but has never confirmed this.    Anne Vitale, who transitioned at age 42 after years of receiving gender therapy, is presumably a G3, but likewise does not confirm this.

b) I criticized Blanchard and Brown for using the label 'homosexual transsexual' not only for its denial of their current womanhood, but even more so for using it re early transitioners who never spent time as gay men.   "On the other hand there are gay transsexuals, many of whom are not early transitioners.   This is a common pattern among trans men, many of whom spend some years as lesbians, often gaining a female lover who stays with them when they become men.  Similarly many trans women spend some time as gay men on their way to womanhood:  Jennifer North, Poppy Cooper, myself, Roz Kaveney,  Dawn Langley Simmons."  I should also have mentioned Susan Cannon, science historian, who went to Dr Biber at age 55 after decades of sex with men.

Vitale initially regarded G3 as 'natal males' only but after further thought made it gender neutral.   If I am to fit into Vitale's typology I would best fit into G2 which is described as ftm only.  The quote above from p20 does not make this clear, but elsewhere Vitale mentions that many of her G2 persons spent time in the lesbian community.   I would see the concept of G2 being improved by making it gender neutral, and for all alumni of gay and lesbian experience.   Likewise G1 would be for all early transitioners who never join gay or lesbian communities.


 

Anna Grodzka (1954–) publisher, entrepreneur, Member of Parliament

Krzysztof Bęgowski was born in Otwock, 24 km southeast of Warsaw, and raised by adoptive parents. Krzysztof graduated in Clinical psychology from the University of Warsaw, where he was active in the Student's Union and the Communist Party. He married and became a father.

In the 1980s he worked in publishing and became an executive at Alma Press. He then ran his own publishing business, and got into radio as an executive. He was active in Socjaldemokracja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, SdRP, the successor to the Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR (the Polish Communist Party) and stayed with it in 1999 when it was folded into the Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, SLD (the Democratic Left Alliance).

By 2007 their son was an adult, and the Bęgowskis divorced. Krzysztof then transitioned as Anna Grodzka with surgery in Bangkok in 2010.   Changing her birth certificate led to her discovering for the first time that she had been adopted, and to a discovery of three younger sisters.

"I never changed my biological sex, I have only undergone adjustment surgery, because I don't believe you can change your sex. The surgery that trans people go through are adjustment procedures."

In 2008 she was co-founder and then president of Trans-Fuzja which was an activist group for trans persons. She was also vice-president of the Commission for Social Dialogue Committee for Equal Treatment under the President of the Capital City Warsaw.

On 10 April 2010, a Polish Air Force plane on route to Smolensk crashed killing the Polish President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others, many members of the Polish elite. In the aftermath Janusz Palikot founded a new political party, Ruch Palikota, initially named after himself. The party was anti-clerical, pro-pot, pro-EU, pro-gay marriage and in favour of flat taxes. It attracted mainly entrepreneurs as candidates, one of whom was Anna Grodzka, and another was the openly gay Robert Biedroń. In the October 2011 elections the new party received 10% of the vote and 40 seats in the Sejm. Grodzka and Biedroń became list MPs. In 2013 Grodzka was nominated for Deputy Speaker, but the MPs voted to keep the incumbent.

In 2013 she was Grand Marshall at Dublin Pride, the first non-Irish person to be so. 

Her wife has broken off contact, but she is in contact with her son.

++In 2015 the Polish Parliament passed a Gender Accordance Act: 252 MPs voted for, with 158 against, and 11 abstained.   However the President, Andrzej Duda, vetoed it, which left Anna feeling defeated, and in the general election of October 2015, she lost her seat, along with the entire left wing.

• Lee Moran. "Spot the new girl! Europe's first transsexual MP takes her seat in Polish parliament". The Daily Mail, 8 November 2011. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2059043/Anna-Grodzka-Worlds-transsexual-MP-takes-seat-Polish-parliament.html.
  
• "Transsexual MP won’t become parliament deputy speaker". Polskie Radio DLA Zagranicy, 8.02.2013. www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/126660,Transsexual-MP-won%E2%80%99t-become-parliament-deputy-speaker. 
  
• David Hudson. "Anna Grodzka interview: what's it like being the world's only transsexual MP?". The Guardian, 3 May 2013. http://careers.theguardian.com/anna-grodzka-worlds-only-transsexual-mp. 
• Krystyną Pytlakowską.   "Anna Grodzka wychodzi z szafy".   Polki, 2014.   http://polki.pl/zycie_gwiazd_znaniilubiani_artykul,10026582.html.
• "Anna Grodzka odchodzi z polityki! Będzie tworzyć radio z Ewą Wanat".  se.pl, 31.10.2015.  www.se.pl/wiadomosci/polityka/anna-grodzka-odchodzi-z-polityki-bedzie-tworzyc-radio-z-ewa-wanat_718135.html. 
• Vanessa Gera.  "In right-wing shift, new Polish parliament has no left wing".  Kxan, October 28, 2015.  http://kxan.com/ap/in-right-wing-shift-new-polish-parliament-has-no-left-wing.
  

PL.WIKIPEDIA    HomoPedia

João W Nery (1950–2018) diving champion, psychologist, manual labourer, writer.

Joana Nery was the youngest of four sisters. In a struggle with her own body, she became a Brazilian diving champion at age 16. She won 30 medals, and had acquired a more muscular body.

She graduated in psychology in 1973 at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and taught at the universities of Gama Filho, Hélio Alonso and Celso Lisboa.

In 1976 Nery attended a clinic organized by Dr Cesar Nahoum and was diagnosed as transsexual. The next year he underwent a clandestine mastectomy and hysterectomy from Dr Roberto Farina in Sao Paulo, and was put on testosterone. Farino considered phalloplasty for João, but Farino had been convicted for doing genital surgery on a trans woman and was still appealing.

João is considered to be the first surgical trans man in Brazil. This was the period of military government (1964-85) when such surgery was illegal, and there was no possibility of having documents re-issued in the new gender.

João W Nery was not able to work in universities, but did work clandestinely as a psychologist. He worked as a taxi driver, builder, retailer, tailor, computer teacher and masseuse. In 1984 he published his first autobiography. In 1987 he adopted the son of his second wife, and continued as his father after the marriage broke up. His fourth marriage has been the most successful.

Nery’s second autobiography came out in 2010, which led to a series of media interviews.

In his sixties, Nery suffered from arthritis, and had a lumbar spine and hip prosthesis. The last surgery led to a heart attack, but he was able to ride his motorcycle to the hospital in time for treatment.

++He died at age 68 after a struggle against cancer.

• João W. Nery. Erro de pessoa: Joana ou João? Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Editora Record, 1984.
• Millos Kaiser. “Corpo Estranho: Em 1977, João Nery foi pioneiro ao se tornar a primeira mulher do Brasil a mudar de sexo”. Trip, 15.12.2009. http://revistatrip.uol.com.br/revista/184/reportagens/corpo-estranho.html.
• “Matéria com João W. Nery”. O Globo, 17 de outubro de 2010. Online at: www.ftmbrasil.org/2011/03/materia-com-joao-w-nery-em-revista-o.html.
• João W. Nery. Viagem Solitária - Memórias de um Transexual 30 anos depois. Editora Leya, 2011.
• “João W Nery por ele mesmo”. O babado e certo..., 28 de outubro de 2011. http://obabadoecerto.gay1.com.br/2011/10/joao-w-nery-por-ele-mesmo.html.

PT.WIKIPEDIA

Tom Reucher (196?–) psychologist, activist.

"Until the lions have their historians, tales of hunting will continue to glorify the hunter ' African proverb cited by Tom Reucher

Reucher first worked as a computer programmer-analyst. In the late 1980s he joined Joseph Doucé’s Centre de Christ Libérateur which helped him overcome his shame and become an activist.

In 1994 he was a co-founder of the Association du Syndrome de Benjamin, which grew to over 300 members. (This is apparently the first use of the term Syndrome de Benjamin). They asked for the syndrome to be removed from the bailiwick of psychiatry, that the term ‘transsexuality’ not be used as it is stigmatizing. They drafted a bill to harmonize changes of civil status. From 1997 they marched in Paris, the first Saturday in October under the label Existrans. They also marched with Gay Pride.

Tom Reucher did a diploma and then a masters in psychology at the University of Paris 8, applying ethnopsychiatry and queer theory to allow transsexuals to speak for themselves.

In September 2001 the magazine Res Publica published an article on transsexuality by Colette Chiland, and the magazine accepted a reply by Reucher, but the management then changed its mind and the reply did not appear, apparently to oblige Chiland.  Reucher’s article was presented at the HBIGDA symposium in September 2003.

“Speaking out by transsexual or transgender individuals in order to counter the professionals who speak in their place is a novelty in France. This goes hand in hand with reclaiming their identity by the act of self-naming, as well as with the founding of organizations to protect their rights. (When ‘Shrinks' are Frightened by Transsexuals ..) “

In 2002 he was a co-founder of VigiTrans, and of the Groupe Activiste Trans, and the next year set up the website Transidentité. From 2003-2006 he worked with the first trans radio program, Bistouri oui-oui , on Radio Libertaire FM 89.4 Mhz.  In 2004 he left the Association du Syndrome de Benjamin following internal dissent, and has been working with Sans contrefaçon. By 2005 the Existrans march was attracting over a thousand marchers.

Since 2005 he has preferred the term transidentity rather than transsexuality or Benjamin Syndrome. In 2007 he completed training in Reichian analysis. In 2008 he moved to Brest where he works as a psychologist and analyst. He is an active member of OII-France.

“My academic career and my background therapy led me to question the medical practices and to understand what was effective and ineffective for transsexes. I also met with transgender men and women and exchanged with them.There are many commonalities.”(Mon parcours thérapeutique et ma formation universitaire m'ont amené à remettre en cause les pratiques médicales et à comprendre ce qui était efficace et inefficace pour les transsexes (transsexuelLEs). J'ai aussi rencontrer des transgenres et échangé avec elles et eux. Il y a beaucoup de points communs. -- Qui Suis-Je? at Transidentité: le site de Tom Reucher)

“The writings of these experts arise from their fright, poor knowledge of the various processes of  transidentity, and heterocentric theories now set up as "standards" in defiance of human rights. In evoking the idea of psychopathology, these words of experts generate social and political consequences for transgender people, such as rejection by family, friends and neighbours, and society in general. These writings also show an inability to learn from patients." ("Les écrits de ces experts découlent de leur frayeur, d’une méconnaissance des différents processus de transidentité et de théories hétérocentrées qui se sont érigées en « normes » au mépris des droits humains. En évoquant l’idée d’une psychopathologie, ces paroles d’experts génèrent des conséquences sociales et politiques pour les personnes transsexuelles, telles que leur rejet par la famille, l’entourage et par la société en général. Ces écrits montrent également une incapacité à apprendre des patients." - Quand les trans deviennent experts)

• Tom Reucher. La sexualité des “transsexuels” (syndrome de Benjamin): Approche ethnopsychiatrique , mémoire de Maîtrise de psychologie clinique et pathologique, sous la direction de Nathalie ZAJDE, Université Paris 8, 110 p., et Annexes, 129 p, 2000.
• Tom Reucher. Ethnopsychiatrie, Theorie Queer et ‘Transsexualisme” (syndrome de Benjamin): Pratiques Cliniques. Université de Paris 8, juin 2002. http://syndromedebenjamin.free.fr/textes/travauxfac/memoiredesstom/pagegarde.htm and at http://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/48/13/86/PDF/Memoire_Tom_Reucher.pdf.
• Tom Reucher. “When ‘Shrinks' are Frightened by Transsexuals ..”. 18th Symposium of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, 10-13 September 2003. http://syndromedebenjamin.free.fr/textes/englishtexts/hbigda2003uk.htm.
• Tom Reucher. Quand les trans deviennent experts. Le devenir trans de l'expertise, in Multitudes, n° 20, printemps 2005, pp. 159-164. http://multitudes.samizdat.net/Qhttp://multitudes.samizdat.net/Quand-les-trans-deviennent-expertsuand-les-trans-deviennent-experts.
• Maxime Foerster. Histoire des transsexuels en France. Paris: Harmatten 2003. Beziers: H&O 2006: 139, 142, 153, 162.
• “Interview Tom Reucher, psychologue clinicien trans”. Observatoire Des Transidentités, 31 mars 2011. http://observatoire-des-transidentites.over-blog.com/article-interview-tom-reucher-psychologue-clinicien-trans-70650595.html.
• “Association du syndrome de Benjamin”. Wikipédia: L’encyclopédie libre. fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_du_syndrome_de_Benjamin.
• “Existrans”. Wikipédia: L’encyclopédie libre. fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existrans
• Transidentité: le site de Tom Reucher. http://syndromedebenjamin.free.fr.

____________________________________________________________

The Association du Syndrome de Benjamin  was formed in 1994.  The Harry Benjamin Syndrome founded by Charlotte Goiar happened a decade later and was initially called Síndrome de Benjamin.   I have not been able to find any mention of Goiar acknowledging the prior existence of Association du Syndrome de Benjamin.    While the ASB was radical, queer and inclusive, HSB was mainly conservative, homophobic and separatist.  It is very difficult to imagine the HBS crowd in a thousand-strong march with gays, socialists and greens.

Paul Walker (1946 – 198?) social psychologist.

Paul Walker did research with John Money at Johns Hopkins Psychohormonal Research Institute, and graduated from the University of Rochester with a PhD in Social Psychology.

He taught at the University of Texas at Galveston Medical Branch where he started a sex offender treatment program and ran the Rosenberg Gender Clinic.

He was openly gay.

In 1977 he was the defense psychologist at Fort Rucker. Alabama, where a young female soldier was accused of homosexuality for marrying a trans man, Kristian von Hoffburg.

After Reed Erickson closed the Erickson Educational Foundation in 1977, Walker and Zelda Suplee formed Janus Information Facility which carried on the work of EEF. Walker also became the founding president of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA now renamed WPATH) and wrote the first Standards of Care for transgender clients with input from other members of his committee.

Dr Walker was recommended by the syndicated newspaper agony aunt, Anne Landers, and that is how Sarah Weston, came to him for counseling early in her transition.

Paul Walker later moved to San Francisco.   He died in the late ‘80s of AIDS complications.

The work of the Janus Information Facility was picked up by J2CP Information Services run by Jude Patton and Mary Elizabeth Clark.

*Not the actor.

• “Can the Army Tolerate a Soldier Married to a Transsexual?”. The Dispatch, Jun 18, 1977. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=19770618&id=An0cAAAAIBAJ&sjid=kVEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6479,4787191.
• Nicholas Ghosh. “Tribute to Paul A. Walker”. Gender Review, December 1978.
• Paul A. Walker, Ph.D., Jack C. Berger, MD., Richard Green, MD., Donald R. Laub, M.D., Charles L. Reynolds, Jr., M.D. & Leo Wollman, M.D. Standards of Care: The hormonal and surgical sex reassignment of gender dysphoric persons. The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, Inc. 1979.
• Lee Grant (dir). What Sex Am I?. With Christine Jorgensen, Paul Walker. US HBO 60 mins 1985.
• Dallas Denny. “Paul A. Walker”. Chrysalis. http://dallasdenny.com/Chrysalis/dallas-cumulative-glossary-of-all-things-transsexual. 

 EN.WIKIPEDIA

Maxine Petersen (195?–) psychologist.

Lem Clemmensen, was a lecturer at the University of Toronto and Coordinator at the Clarke Institute (later the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) Gender Identity Clinic, where he often was the one who was more sympathetic to the trans patients.  His 1986 masters thesis was Male gender dysphoria and criminality.

He was married to a woman, and they had two children. In 1991 Lem transitioned as Maxine, while still working at the Gender Identity Clinic where she was her own supervisor. Michael Bailey says that after transition she never saw her children again.

Maxine is quoted in Bailey’s The Man who Would be Queen as saying: “Most gender patients lie” and this one quote has been repeated extensively. She was part of the committee that revised the Standards of Care in 1998.

In 2000, she and Robert Dickey denied Synthia Kavanagh approval for SRS in that, being in prison, she could not do a Real Life Test. In the same year they were quoted in Vivian Namaste’s book defending the requirement that a trans person should do a year’s Real Life Test before starting hormones, and as critical of activists demanding hormones and surgery as a right. In September 2003 Maxine testified at an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal that government funding should be re-instated for SRS.

In November 2003 she resigned from HBIGDA (Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, now WPATH) when her boss Ray Blanchard did because it criticized Bailey’s book, an act which she described as ‘political correctness’.

She now lists her name as Maxine Petersen-Lee and offers private counselling.

*Not the mortgage specialist.

• Len Clemmensen. Male gender dysphoria and criminality. University of Toronto, MA thesis, 1986.
•  Maxine Petersen, J. Stephens, Robert Dickey, and W. Lewis. "Transsexuals within the Prison System: An International Survey of Correctional Services Policies". Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 14:219–229, 1996.
• Maxine Petersen. "Review of FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society by Holly Devor". The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. Summer 1998. 
• Viviane K. Namaste. Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000: 199-201.
• J. Michael Bailey. The Man Who Would Be Queen: the science of gender-bending and transsexualism. Washington: Joseph Henry; Oxford: Oxford Publicity Partnership, 2003: 205
• “Ray Blanchard and the Clarke Institute: Patient experiences”. Transsexual Road Map. www.tsroadmap.com/info/blanchard-clarke-institute.html.
• “Maxine Petersen on transsexualism”. Transsexual Road Map. www.tsroadmap.com/info/maxine-petersen.html.

____________________________________________________________

I do not normally categorize persons discussed here as HSTS or autogynephilic, but as a loyal associate of Ray Blanchard, Petersen presumably endorses his binary, and as a father and ex-husband, that would make her Autogynephilic. She has not clarified whether she regards herself as such.

Unlike the Vancouver, Stanford, Charing Cross and Monash gender clinics, and unlike the Gender Recognition Panel, and the Free University in Amsterdam, the CAMH actually has a transsexual staff member.

In Vivian Namaste’s book, Petersen is not identified as trans, as per Namaste’s usual practice.  This makes her book an open text in that many of her readers know about Petersen from other sources.

Richard Ekins (194?–) jazz musician, sociologist, psychoanalyst.

++ updated August 2012, March 2014

++Teenage Richard Ekins was a fan of New Orleans jazz.  Inspired by the legendary trumpeter DeDe La Croix Pierce (1904 - 73), he played the same instrument in New Orleans-style jazz bands mainly in and around Birmingham, firstly with the Burgundy Street Stompers in 1964, before teaming up with pianist Bob Barton to co-lead the Crescent City Stompers from 1966 to 1968.  On his first visit to New Orleans in 1966 he encountered Joseph 'Kid Twat' Butler, bass player with the Kid Thomas Band, who had never seen such a tall, long-haired and heavily-bearded man, and bowed down proclaiming: Here come de Lord!".  The moniker stuck.  Lord Richard set up his own record label,  La Croix Records, and released seven LPs by both British and New Orleans musicians. The famous Kid Thomas Band recorded live in 1968 at Kohlman’s Tavern in New Orleans was one of his projects.
  

Richard also did a Ll.B Hons in Law at the University of Birmingham in 1966, and then a PhD on the work of philosopher and social psychologist George Mead at the University of London where he was influenced by Margaret Coulson & Carol Riddell's pioneering introductory textbook on sociology. ++He fathered two sons named after his record label and a jazz hero:  Matthew La Croix Ekins (1974-) and Luke Baptiste Ekins (1977-) - named for Willie Baptiste, the banjo player++.  Richard completed his PhD in 1978 after an extended period with Mead disciple David L. Miller at the University of Texas at Austin, and at the Mead Archive at the University of Chicago.


Ekins chose transvestites and transsexuals as the empirical domain to which he would apply his theoretical training.

"As a student of the sociology of knowledge, I approached the area in terms of the interrelations between the various ‘knowledges’ in the area, conceptualized in terms of three principal ‘knowledges’: those of ‘science’, those of ‘members’ (of transgendered people), and those of ‘everyday life’."

Ekins and Dave King first met at the British Sociological Conference on Gender in Manchester in 1982.

"My work was based upon observations of what later became several thousands of transgendered people, extended interviews with several hundred informants, and detailed life-long life history work with several dozen informants from a number of different continents. From the outset I took care to follow selected informants in the full range of their social settings. This often entailed detailed observational and interview work with medical and related professionals, with the families of my transgendered informants, and with the various service providers to trans people, such as beauticians and hair care specialists. At the same time, I immersed myself into the full range of transgender ‘community’ events such as private meetings, drag balls, erotic networks, and so on. (2006:8)"

He started at the University of Ulster at Coleraine as a senior lecturer in sociology in 1984, by which time he had developed his signature jargon of 'femaling'. In 1986 he established the Trans-Gender Archive with himself as director. This is probably the earliest textual use of 'transgender' in the collective sense, although the term had been used orally with that meaning in Britain as early as The First National TV.TS Conference in 1974 at Leeds, and was so used on BBC Radio in 1979. Ekins contributed towards the definition of Transgender in the Oxford English Dictionary.

In 1989 Ekins obtained a M.Med.Sc in psychotherapy from Queen's University, Belfast. In 1995 he switched to being a senior lecturer in psychology. In 1996 he completed his training as a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society and International Psychoanalytical Society.  In 1996 Ekins and King edited a collection of papers, Blending genders: social aspects of cross-dressing and sex-changing, with contributions from both trans persons (Mark Rees, Phaedra Kelly, Rachel Terri Webb, Stephen Whittle) and from academics (Neil Buhrich, Janice Raymond).  The next year Ekins published Male Femaling: a grounded theory approach to cross-dressing and sex-changing. (Review) Ekins also published books on psychoanalysis. 

In 1999 Ekins and King published "Towards a sociology of transgendered bodies" in The Sociological Review, where they summarized their position:

"Transgendering refers both to the idea of moving across (transferring) from one pre-existing gender category to another (either temporarily or permanently), and to the idea of transcending or living ‘beyond gender’ altogether. Following Plummer’s (1995) work on sexual stories, we distinguish a number of contemporary transgendering body stories which we consider in terms of four major modes or styles of body transgendering: those we identify as ‘migrating’, ‘oscillating’, ‘erasing’ and ‘transcending’. We give illustrative examples of each mode with reference to the binary male/female divide, the interrelations between sex, sexuality and gender, and the interrelations between the four main sub-processes of transgendering, which we identify as ‘substituting’, ‘concealing’, ‘implying’ and ‘redefining’."

Also in 1999, Ekins and King met Anne Lawrence at the 6th Biennial Harry Benjamin Conference in London. They sort of incorporated her ideas into Ekins' concept of erotic femaling, and in 2001 published “Transgendering, Migrating and Love of Oneself as a Woman: A Contribution to a Sociology of Autogynephilia”. Unlike the Blanchardians they see autogynephilia in MTFs as very similar to that in cis women.

“In our judgement, our framework provides the conceptual wherewithal to unpack such issues in a way denied to the taxonomic, typological and diagnostic approach followed by Blanchard.”

Ekins was Reader in Cultural and Media Studies from 2002, and Professor of Sociology and Cultural Studies from 2006.

In 2009 Ekins and King published The Transgender Phenomenon, which expanded the program that they had proposed in "Towards a sociology of transgendered bodies", 2006.   The book heavily features Virginia Prince, to the point of including an extensive biography, and is one of the very few books to discuss Charlotte Bach.  And the same year they published a book devoted exclusively to Prince and her writings.

Since retirement, Ekins  has completed an MA in Popular Music Studies at the University of Liverpool and is currently working for a PhD in Musicology at Goldsmiths, University of London. and has returned to recording jazz-revival CDs.

++The Trans-Gender Archive had never been inventoried.  After retirement Ekins offered the collection to the London School of Economics’ LGBT Hall-Carpenter Archive, but was told it would not be accepted because of a lack of an inventory listing what it contained.  They also insisted that they would need him to get rid of any items subject to copyright or containing personal information like addresses.  He then accepted an offer from Aaron Devor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, who arranged for it to be shipped to Victoria.  Other possible UK sites were not consulted.  

*not the Oxford law tutorial fellow

• Richard Ekins. ‘G. H. Mead: Contributions to a Philosophy of Sociological Knowledge’, PhD thesis, University of London, 1978.
• Richard Ekins.‘Male Transsexualism, Sociological Analysis and Some Problems of the Double Hermeneutic’, Annual Conference of the British Sociological Association, Manchester. 1982.
• Richard Ekins. (1983) "The Assignment of Motives as a Problem in the Double Hermeneutic: the Case of Transvestism and Transsexuality, Annual Conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland, Wexford, 1983.
• Richard Ekins. "Facets of Femaling in Some Relations Between Sex, Sexuality and Gender", Annual Conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland, Drogheda. 1984.
• Richard Ekins. "News from Around the World - In Their Own Words: Interview with Dr. Richard Ekins of the Trans-Gender Archive, University of Ulster". Renaissance News, The Chrysalis Interview, 1 (5), 1987: 4-5.
• Richard Ekins. "Building a Trans-Gender Archive: On the classification and framing of trans-gender knowledge". Beaumont Trust International Gender Dysphoria Conference, Manchester, 1990. www.gender.org.uk/conf/1990/90ekins.htm.
• Richard Ekins. ‘On Male Femaling: A Grounded Theory Approach to Cross-Dressing and Sex-Changing’, The Sociological Review, 41 (1): 1–29, 1993.
• Richard Ekins & Ruth Freeman (ed). Centres and Peripheries of Psychoanalysis: An Introduction to Psychoanalytic Studies. Karnac Books, 1994.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King (eds). Blending genders: social aspects of cross-dressing and sex-changing. London and New York: Routledge. 1996.
• Richard Ekins. Male femaling: a grounded theory approach to cross-dressing and sex-changing. London & New York: Routledge. 1997.
• Richard Ekins (ed). Selected Writings of Anna Freud. Penguin, 1998.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King. "Towards a sociology of transgendered bodies". The Sociological Review, 47:580–602, 1999.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King. "Telling Body Transgendering Stories". In Kathryn Backett-Milburn & Linda McKie (eds). Constructing Gendered Bodies. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King. “Transgendering, Migrating and Love of Oneself as a Woman: A Contribution to a Sociology of Autogynephilia”. International Journal of Transgenderism, 5,3, www.wpath.org/journal/www.iiav.nl/ezines/web/IJT/97-03/numbers/symposion/ijtvo05no03_01.htm.
• Richard Ekins. Unconscious Mental Life and Reality. Karnac Books, 2002.
• Dave Senior. "Dan Pawson's Artesian Hall Stompers in the 60's - The Forgotten Recordings". Jazzgazette, 2004. Online at: http://home.scarlet.be/davesenior/AHS%20in%20the%2060.htm.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King. "Rethinking 'Who put the 'Trans' in Transgender?" GENDYS 2004, The 8th International Gender Dysphoria Conference, Manchester. www.gender.org.uk/conf/2004/04ekins.htm.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King. "Transgendering, Men, and Masculinities". In J. Hearn, M. Kimmel and R. Connell (eds). Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities. London & New Delhi: Sage, 2005: 379-394.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King. The Transgender Phenomenon. London: Thousand Oaks; California: Sage. 2006.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King (eds), with a forward by Susan Stryker. Virginia Prince: Pioneer of Transgendering. Haworth Press Inc., Paperback: 65 pages 2006. Essays about and by Virginia Prince.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King. "Pioneers of Transgendering: The Life and Work of Virginia Prince". GENDYS 2k, The Sixth International Gender Dysphoria Conference, Manchester Eng. www.gender.org.uk/conf/2000/king20.htm. 2006.
• David Valentine. Imagining Transgender: an ethnography of a category. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2007: 262n2.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King. "Transgender, Transvestism, and Transsexualism". In G. Ritzer (ed). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2007: 5037-5043.
• Richard Ekins & Dave King. "The Emergence of New Transgendering Identities in the Age of the Internet". In S. Hines and T. Sanger (eds). Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity. London: Routledge, 2010.
• Amy Smart.  "University of Victoria transgender archive gets a European boost".  Times Colonist, July 12, 2013.   www.timescolonist.com/news/local/university-of-victoria-transgender-archive-gets-a-european-boost-1.523095.
• Alice Hutton.  "Unique transgender archive sent to Canadian university after offer to LSE is rebuffed".  Camden New Journal, 18 July 2013.   www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2013/jul/unique-transgender-archive-sent-canadian-university-after-offer-lse-rebuffed. 
•  Catherine Baker.  "The ethics of archive acquisitions: why couldn’t an important collection of British trans history stay in the UK?".  22 July 2013.  http://bakercatherine.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/the-ethics-of-archive-acquisitions-why-couldnt-an-important-collection-of-british-trans-history-stay-in-the-uk.

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The OED definition of transgender which Ekins contributed to is

“Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender, but combines or moves between these; transgendered.  Although often used (esp. among participants in transgender lifestyles) as a generic and inclusive term which deliberately avoids categorizations such as transsexual or transvestite, in wider use transgender is sometimes used synonymously with these more specific terms.”

The books by Ekins and King are not just sociology, they are also history.  There are incidents recorded in their books that  I have not found elsewhere.  The use of 'transgender' on BBC radio mentioned above;  Stephen Whittle being active in the UK branch of Angela Douglas' TAO.  Anybody like myself researching history and biography will find the books essential for this alone.

While Ekins and King have taken Blanchardian ideas into their theorizing, I cannot find any examples of reciprocation. 

In fact I cannot find any critical discussions of Ekins' work outside the circle around Kenneth Plummer.

Ekins seems to be quite insensitive to the fact that many, perhaps most, trans persons find the term ‘male femaling’ to be offensive.  He also uses ‘transgendered' which is now rejected by many, probably most, transgender persons, but that point was not not commonly made back in 2006.

On the last page of Male Femaling, 1997, he mentions the lack of studies of male maling and female femaling.   We are still waiting. 

The Transgender Phenomenon give an  amazingly uncritical account of the Blanchardian ideas, and dismisses the  opposition in merely a few words:  "a concerted campaign has been fought in an attempt to discredit this book alongside the work of Blanchard and Lawrence (see Conway, 2004; James, 2004)".   What happened to the interrelations of the the three knowledges?  Surely, against what Ekins had promised us, this is a privileging of professional knowledge.

Likewise the book is weak on criticism of Prince, and does not consider the damage that her homophobia and transgenderphobia did.  The book was published in 2006 and therefore does not mention HBS which started only in that year.  Prince was as much against transgender diversity as the HBS people are, and Ekins does not make this clear.  See the comparisons here.


Fortunately the term ‘male femaling’ has not taken off.  It is not the case that he uses the American single l rather than the British double ll (compare modeling and modelling).  The dropped ‘e’ requires a single l or else the pronunciation changes.

Why 'Trans-Gender'?  ""The use of the hyphen was in homage to ‘psycho-analysis’. ‘Psycho-analysis’ as opposed to ‘psychoanalysis’ represented, until very recently, commitments to purity, integrity and authenticity in some quarters. Indeed, the British Psycho-Analytical Society still retains the hyphen. (2006:14-15)".

Richard Ekins has been hanging around trans events etc since 1979.  He says not a word about whether he ever did participate, whether as sociological participant observation, for the simple fun of it, as an exercise in performativity, or to understand better what he was watching.


In Surya Monro's GenderPolitics, which was published in 2005, a year before The Trangender Phenomenon, on the second page of the introduction, we find: "I keeping with the usual norm, I shall identify myself at this stage as a female-bodied bisexual, who does not identify as trans in any substantial way at present, but who has explored some trans identities in the past."  Despite his higher rank, Ekins does not feel that he can be as open about himself.   Maybe it is a difference of generations.          

Note to US readers:  what is called a professor in the US is a lecturer in the UK.  A UK professorship is top rank in the department.                                                                                                                                                                                                

Usually when I profile a musician I include a video of them performing, or, failing that, a link to a site where the person's music can be sampled.  I found neither.